


Dahlia 2 and the Detroit Exhibit

by twincest



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Graphic Description, Murder Mystery, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Reader is a detective, somewhat slow burn, violent depictions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 01:48:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29288574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twincest/pseuds/twincest
Summary: While humans and Androids continue to figure out their coexistence two years after the revolution, a serial killer strikes in Detroit and upends the everyday normalcy that Connor has built for himself.Partnered with a new detective who might like Androids a little too much, it's up to them to piece together the identity of the culprit and bring them to justice.And Cyberlife? More secretive than ever now that Kamski has reclaimed control.
Relationships: Connor (Detroit: Become Human) & Reader, Connor (Detroit: Become Human)/Original Female Character(s), Connor (Detroit: Become Human)/Reader
Kudos: 10





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> After a couple of months planning this out and more lore than I'm likely to use, I'm happy to finally start on my main Connor fic!  
> Chapters might be short sometimes, but I hope to update more frequently
> 
> If you're interested, you can see my detective characters design [here](https://detective-chan.carrd.co) but feel free to imagine her appearance however you like

October 25th, 2040 

5:38AM

Connor was trying to dream when he received the call from dispatch, pulling him out of a timeless void and back into his studio apartment.    
He opened his eyes to the rain outside of his storm window and his phone vibrating on the living room table behind him. Gathering himself back from hibernation, he questioned if the RealDream app was functioning properly with his software. He had to run it in a compatibility mode, as was the case for most of the apps on the open source BlueMarket store, and so there was a chance that some aspect was malfunctioning.

Considering that Connor was still the singular most advanced Android in existence, it wasn’t unusual that applications built by models half a decade older than him couldn’t guarantee results.

Cyberlife had ceased public production on all newer Androids since the revolution two years ago while the legal details regarding their citizenship were still being worked through the law and the specs of an RK800 weren’t disclosed to anyone outside of the company. 

Simulating the experience of dreaming was something he’d been trying for a year now, but it was a curiosity he’d have to quench another time.

Connor connected to his phone wirelessly to answer.

There was a homicide in a housing complex called Winter Home Estates and it was urgent that he get there. He informed dispatch that he’d be on his own, picking out a black raincoat from his sparsely filled closet and placing the phone in his pocket.

Androids didn’t  _ need  _ raincoats or phones, but it was inconvenient to walk around drenched and humans relied on phones so much that it was unthinkable to not own one in his line of work. As long as it held a charge, he didn’t even need to open it.

Giving himself a once over, using his storm window as a mirror and adjusting his tie, he left to flag down a taxi to the other side of town. 

By the time Connor arrived at the scene of the crime an hour later, the gate was already closed off with police tape and five separate cruisers were parked by the curb. It had stopped raining and the pavement was full of puddles. 

As he stepped out of the cab, scanning the immediate vicinity, he realized that this had to be something  _ unusual _ . There were at least two dozen officers at the scene, far more than any normal homicide case would require; historical data indicated that at most five would have sufficed. What exactly warranted such a presence?

This looked to be a mid-scale housing complex, with residents well off enough to decorate their yards full of inflatable ghosts and pumpkins but staff so negligent that every home had chipped paint or a cracked window.

“Hey, Connor!” An officer standing guard by the gate motioned for him to hurry. “The lieutenant is about to blow a gasket.” 

Hank was waiting for him in the front yard of a blue house with a yellow roof, talking to Ben in a hushed voice. Ben was visibly sweating, arms crossed with his clipboard tucked into his coat. 

When he noticed Connor approaching, he sighed at him and threw his hands up. “Connor! It’s been over an hour since dispatch called you!”

“Sorry, lieutenant,” Connor apologized cordially. “Morning traffic gets really congested at this time. I got here as soon as I could.”

“First things first,” Hank shut his eyes and shook his head, exasperated. “You’re getting your own fucking car this weekend, I’m tired of you being at the  _ mercy  _ of Detroit public transit..”

Ben looked from Connor to the front door, shaking his head despondently. “It’s a real mess in there. I’m telling ya.”

“Secondly,” Hank continued, resting his hand on the stair railing. “It’s just like Ben said. It’s real fucking mess and listen--”

“Lieutenant!” A high pitched voice interrupted them from the next door yard, where another circle of officers were talking among themselves, and Connor turned to see a girl waving enthusiastically with a friendly smile behind a pair of sunglasses.

Hank rolled his eyes. “Shit. Almost forgot.” 

Connor hadn’t seen her around the station and she wasn’t in uniform. She certainly didn’t  _ look  _ like she worked in law enforcement given her small stature, but he reserved his judgement. He wasn’t sure what to expect and some part of that unknown enticed his curiosity.    
As she dashed over to them, she stuffed her hands in her pockets. 

“Hello,” she said to Connor. She was looking up at him, something in her expression that he couldn’t place with her eyes shaded. 

“Hello,” Connor said back. “And who are you?”

Hank motioned at her to pull up her glasses and she quickly placed them atop her head like a child being scolded. The sky was completely overcast and the sun hadn’t even fully risen yet, so it was strange that she was wearing them in the first place.

A force of habit, he attempted to ID her by facial recognition now that her glasses were off but her name returned an error. 

“Alright,” Hank said, looking between them. “Quick introduction. Connor, this is the detective transferred to the department a few weeks ago. Doesn’t look like much, but in the interrogation room she can make anybody sing like a canary. Her acting with those weirdos is a little too good, if you ask me.”

The detective gave her name and bashfully rocked in place. “Well, y’know what they say...good things come in small packages.”

Hank ignored her and got back to business. “Point is that she insists on going in there with you--at her own risk.”

“At my own risk!” She chimed.

“Well, okay.” Connor turned to her and offered a personable smile, extending his hand out to her. “My name is Connor. I’m an RK800 prototype model Android that’s worked for the Detroit Police for two years now. I look forward to working with you.”

The detective shyly shook his hand, glancing away from him for just a second, her palm noticeably sweaty and her pulse picking as their skin held contact. “I-I’m looking forward to working with you too!”

For her heart to be beating so quickly, she must have been hiding some trepidation about the scenario they were about to walk into. It was an added challenge observing a crime scene with someone who was already so anxious about a murder scene, but he’d make it work.


	2. Introduction

Today would feed you the excitement that you so desperately craved.

Connor’s hand was warm and his grip firm. Confident. 

You couldn’t help feeling befuddled as you smiled up at him, doing your best to conceal the butterflies in your chest. This was a crime scene and you were at work!

Just because Connor turned out to be so much more attractive and handsome in person didn’t mean that you could act unprofessionally right now--not when you’d worked so hard to get transferred in the first place. This case would be your chance to gain some rapor.

Okay, maybe you hadn’t worked that hard. Luck was involved. But that was all the more reason to not blow your shot here in the Android capital of the world. 

Connor nodded towards the front door. “Are you ready to go in?”

“Yeah.” You followed him up the creaky steps, steeling yourself for the scent of death. It was never the sight of a body being mauled and maimed that got to you but the smell; hopefully the bodies were fresh enough that the bodies weren’t rotting yet.

Connor opened the door and nodded for you to go in first (a gentleman!) and the moment you stepped in you caught the glimpse of  _ something  _ standing up to the right, just past a wall.

“What the…?”

You moved a little faster to look at what could have only been a study area given the books, papers, pens, and office supplies that had been shoved onto the floor next to a toppled rolling chair.

On top of a wooden desk were the victims: four of them, two human and two Android, beheaded and limbless with their parts set around them for decoration. Their nude torsos were aligned shoulder to shoulder in an attempt to form a diamond shape, with their arms wrapped around beneath the breasts and their hands gripping the arm in front. The killer had followed a pattern of attaching the android arms to the human arms, rotating between them. In the space between the torsos the legs had been propped up to form a makeshift table upon which to display the heads. 

It didn’t look real. This was something you’d see in a horror movie that tried way too hard to be shocking.

Despite the swollen features on their faces, it was easy to see that they’d been beautiful women. Androids were usually more attractive than humans, anyway, but these two were something special.

“Detective, are you alright?” Connor was standing next to you.

“I’m fine. Just surprised.” It was a relief that they weren’t stinking yet.

“Well.” You could hear him take a breath. “Who wouldn’t be? This is certainly my first time seeing something...like this.”

_ Ding! _

A notification hit your glasses and you pulled them over your eyes, scanning over the new information from the station. The shades adjusted to the lighting. “So the victims…”   
Their photos lined up in your vision next to their severed heads was a bleak comparison. You closed the photos. 

“Pamela Gordan, Kimberly Little, Tyra Cloutier, and Amy Meyer,” Connor said. “The first two are the names of the human victims.”

He’d already identified them by their face? That was fast.

Before he could say it first, you had to or else he might think you were only lying to try to impress him. “The killer is an Android.” 

You pointed towards the heads. “Two of our victims are Androids and yet neither of them could overpower the attacker. They didn’t record his face and upload it before their death or send out a message calling for help...he must have shut down their wireless functions with a blackout device. Also, look at the cutting. Too clean. And the biocomponents…”

The only gashes in the Android torsos were placed exactly where the thirium pumps had no doubt been tossed aside. You’d probably find them somewhere, assuming the killer didn’t take them home as a souvenir (you had no doubt they’d taken  _ something _ ). 

It wasn’t everyday knowledge for most humans to know the basics of Android anatomy, mostly because they had no use for it. Either an Android worked or it didn’t.

Connor nodded over to the right side of the wall. “There’s also that.”

You hadn’t even seen it.

Written on the wall in cursive, each word written in blood, was the name the killer had given to his display. 

TOTEM OF LOVERS

“It was done by hand,” Connor told you. “There’s no fingerprints anywhere. There’s the chance they were wearing gloves, but given the texture it doesn’t seem likely. I wonder...”

He stepped towards the wall and dragged two fingers along the first letter, collecting the dried flakes and rubbing them between his thumb. “It’s dry, but not completely. It was laid on thick.”

“Detective,” he said. “I’m going to analyze this and I test samples with my tongue. Just a warning.”

“That’s fine.”

He drew the fingers up to his tongue and held them there, attention focused enough that maybe he didn’t notice you were looking at him. Could he see behind your glasses?

There was something so sensual about the way he did it, moving to the next word and repeating the gesture. Without consciously willing it, you zoomed in on the details of the dried flakes gaining the least bit of moisture as the buds of his tongue made contact. God you  _ really  _ hoped he couldn’t tell that you were doing this!

_ I’m already acting inappropriately. Might as well… _

You snapped a screenshot and stored it in the hard drive, sure that if you were to send it to your home computer he’d notice your glasses transferring something wirelessly.

Just in case he  _ could  _ hear the sound of the camera app that should only be audible to you, however, you took off your glasses and wiped them on your jacket as if to say,  _ oh damn I just hit a button I didn’t mean to! Damned glasses haha _ .

Play it cool. 

“You wouldn’t have noticed.” Connor’s voice drew you out of your depravity. “But there are two words written in thirium here, thus the spacing. In case you’re unaware, Thirium dries after a couple of hours and becomes naked to the human eye. But I can see the residue. The full text written here is ‘Totem Pole of Scorned Lovers’. Even without the two words that a human couldn’t see, the title is comprehensible. And so it’s reasonable to think the killer accounted for the Thirium drying.”

He looked back to the wall, the circuits in his head no doubt firing away as he processed the information. “The killer used each of their blood per word, starting with Pamela’s, then Tyra, Kim, and Amy. They started over with the last word.” 

Something about that stuck with you. “It has to mean  _ something _ ...but what? Oh--”

You put your glasses back on and browsed some of the apps on the Roboshield store. “I wish I could see blue blood. Too bad there’s not an app…”

“Cyberlife doesn’t like to reveal their secrets,” Connor humored you. 

“But these  _ are  _ made by Cyberlife,” you sighed. “And they know I’m a cop so they should let me have Thirium vision, anyway. I figured you know about these, right? Cyberlife Roboshields!”

You tried not to sound too enthusiastic about your glasses next to the dead. It was disrespectful, kinda like laughing at a funeral, right? Probably?

“Cyberlife doesn’t let me in on everything. If it’s not relevant to my work, I don’t hear from them since Kamski regained his seat as CEO.” Connor spoke slowly, as if he were choosing his words carefully. Or maybe there was shame in no longer being their golden child. Connor didn’t know about  _ you _ , but you certainly knew about  _ him  _ and the role he played in assuring Androids were given their freedom.

If not for the uprising, Kamski likely wouldn’t have reclaimed his position, so it would was curious that he would lock out the RK800 from their databases.

“Well, it’s not top secret but kinda secret I guess.” You scratched your head. “Legally, I’m a cyborg.”

“There’s a legal classification for cyborgs?”

“Not  _ yet _ , but I’m just one of the first and it sounds cool to say you’re a cyborg. There’s a chip in the back of my head that lets me control my glasses with my brain. I use them for work, too.” You beamed, hands on your hips. “In fact, it was getting these a year ago that gave me the courage to finally move up here. Only about two thousand people were selected out of like a million applicants as the first wave to receive the prototype models. I had a sign waver and everything these are so intense!” 

Connor probably didn’t care for your personal history, as he was staring at you, and suddenly you felt shy. Maybe it was your imagination, but it was an  _ intense  _ stare and it wasn’t so different from the analytical look on his face when he was sampling the blood. 

“A-Anyway. Sorry to get distracted.” You adjusted your glasses and glanced away from him at the kitchen to your right and the living room to your left, where a flight of stairs offered you escape from your embarrassment. “I’m gonna check out the upstairs.”

  
  


Case 1: Totem Pole of Scorned Lovers

[Start Investigation]

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading~  
> I also have a tumblr [here](https://gloomyglyph.tumblr.com) where I occasionally gush about Connor and have lewd thoughts


End file.
